Very belated hello!

[denise]

Thanks for the critique. If you mean the straight-edged one, which is actually not rectangular of course, it was inspired by a chimney pot on Gaudi's Sagrada Familia - which makes me sound quite arty but actually I'd never had any sort of relationship with art until I did the BTec design course. It was like getting blood from a stone, I can tell you, but I did learn to be a designer of sorts.

I suppose thicker wire would make more of an impact. I love the way sterling silver contrasts with and accentuates the colours of the titanium, so I try to use some in every piece. Another idea would be to pierce out a design in the titanium before oxidising it and then rivet some sterling silver behind it. Would that do the trick do you think? I made a copper bangle for my final project which had a titanium element riveted to the inside. It would have looked better in silver but it would have cost too much to make. If I ever manage to get a good photo of it I'll post it for you.

[Joe]

Sagrada Familia is such an eclectic work that it must contain just about every possible shape! I'm much more drawn to Parc Guell's restraint / bounded. Did you get up to the roof of Casa Mila? Jewellery on a large scale!

Yes, piercing rather than larger wire would have that sense of cleft, which I can see more clearly is the appeal there to me personally...

Not really critique - art is rather resistant to criticism - but it is interesting to find the bits that appeal to me emotionally and try to express that in some way other than "nice" and "lovely". I suppose in a way I'm asking whether you have the same feeling about it and whether that's what appeals to you in it. Sometimes an outside view can express what you can only feel.... or miss!

I had an accident with a piece some months ago that I intend to adapt along those lines - a fracture I accidentally introduced when bending a piece of very hot sterling that had moved during soldering. It was handy to sort that positive feeling out from the basic disappointment!

[lorraineflee]

Hi denise and welcome. I love the colours in those items of yours.
Lorraine

[denise]

Hi Joe, sadly I haven't been to see Gaudi's work in person, just looked at lots of photographs. Sagrada Familia didn't appeal to me as much as some of the smaller buildings - I think one of my favourites was called Cas Batlo or something like that. There's obviously an astonishing level of skill and attention to detail in all his work.

Hard to say what appeals to me in a piece of jewellery, but my preferred method of working is to take the material and see what it suggests - so hammering a piece of thick wire and then bending and twisting it comes more naturally than drawing designs on paper and then planning how to execute them. I don't analyse much. I do like to have a contrast of colour and/or texture in a piece, and yes I do have an emotional response to pieces of jewellery - often a strong one - but I haven't tried to define the emotions much.

Thinking of your "accident", I've found that the things that go wrong often end up being the best pieces. It's like what I said earlier about every problem being a challenge and an opportunity. Doesn't stop me cursing when I melt something or a bit breaks off, though.

[denise]

Hi Lorraine, thanks for the welcome, and for the kind words. It's the colours that make me love titanium too.

Denise